['This wasn't a race riot, it was a…]

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'This wasn't a race riot, it was a class riot.".

The quotation in the headline above is taken from a special report in the May 11 edition of Newsweek magazine. This one-sided judgement by urban sociologist, Joel Kotkin, that class—not race propelled the protests, nevertheless helps explain the depth of the uprising in South-Central Los Angeles. The intolerable conditions being suffered by Latinos and even white workers in this community spurred them to take action in solidarity with their Black sisters and brothers when the outrageous Rodney King verdict was announced. This is what triggered and gave force to the powerful response throughout that city and across the United States.

But it was the fundamental issue of racial This event reveals for the first time how deeply broad sectors of the working class have been affected by the relentless decadeslong ruling-class assault on workers' living standards. It also marks the latest and most convincing proof that the coming American Revolution will combine a workers' struggle for class liberation with a Black struggle against superexploitation and national oppression.

The spark igniting the tinderbox When four white cops were caught on videotape in the act of beating Black motorist Rodney G. King within an inch of his life while he was being arrested for a traffic violation, the U.S. ruling class was put on trial in the eyes of America and the world. The repeatedly televised video, showing 81 seconds of one of the most brutal beatings ever captured on film or tape, allowed the whole world to eye-witness a day in the life of Black America.

A widely held belief that the King beating was not unique was confirmed by a Washington Post/ABC News poll. This poll, taken after the King verdict, shower that "three quarters of the whites questioned agreed with the all-but-unanimous feeling of African Americans that the system of justice was loaded against them."

The sequence of events leading up to the trial of the four cops was more than enough cause for suspicion about the outcome. A judge was easily found who shifted the trial from multiracial Los Angeles to Simi Valley, a comfortable white middle-class suburb favored by white cops retiring from the LAPD. Then, in line with well-established racist pattems, a jury was selected without a single African American on the panel.

Subsequently, the only surprise in this racist jury's decision was the sheer nakedness of its upside-down verdict: The jury ruled that the prostrate and helpless Black victim was the criminal, and that the four gun-toting, club-wielding cops were his intended victims!

A reaction from the Black community was only to be expected. But the fury of the uprising in South-Central Los Angeles—which spread to cities across the landexceeded all expectations.

Most surprising of all was the widespread recognition in the nation's media-as was most sharply expressed in Newsweek-that the rage registered by these uprisings went far deeper into the basic structure of capitalism in Americadeeper than just a reaction against police brutality and the racist foundation of American "justice."

A typical analysis was contained in a May 3 New York Times story titled, "Decades of Rage Created Crucible of Violence." The author, Don Terry, comments: ...the acquittal of the four police officers ... was only a spark put to the tinderbox of anger built up over years of deep poverty, governmental neglect, racism, charges of police abuse and high unemployment."

In fact, the economic situation for African Americans has grown even worse (continued on page 10) (continued on page 11, in “Malcolm X kind”)